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Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber of Bullshit Jobs, and, more importantly, this book. Graeber was an anthropologist, and he goes through the history o

Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber of Bullshit Jobs, and, more importantly, this book. Graeber was an anthropologist, and he goes through the history of debt and how it became intertwined with our culture and morality with many, many examples. The book is chock full of ideas. Also The Dawn of Everything, which Graeber cowrote with archaeologist David Wengrow. The broader point of the book is that there is no one story of the "evolution" of society into modern states and no "agricultural revolution" triggering the rise of urbanization and social hierarchy. Instead, there have been countless arrangements and permutations of these things with intelligent, politically-conscious people thinking about how they wanted to order their society long before the invention of writing. He takes particular aim at popular writers pushing simpler stories painting Western capitalism as a natural endpoint, especially Stephen Pinker and Yuval Noah Harari. Even if you aren't onboard with Graeber's radical left politics, both books are so chock full of ideas and examples that it's hard to come away without a lot to think about.

unmole 4y ago
> Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber Graeber misinterprets the history and ideas of mainstream economics, calls the safest securities on the planet a debt that will never be paid and spins bizarre conspiracy theories about the Iraq invasion. You might learn about the quaint cultural practices of remote tribes but a lot of the ideas presented are complete nonsense. You might say it has good and original parts. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
- jargnar 4y ago
  > Graeber misinterprets the history and ideas of mainstream economics Can you provide a well researched body of literature that counters Graeber’s thesis as opposed to just stating an opinion?
  - Wolfenstein98k 4y ago
    A non-economist makes economic claims that just so happen to reflect the political views of his political contemporaries, but it is the job of anyone who disagrees to cite an entire body of literature, reviewed to a high but unspecified standard?
    - jargnar 4y ago
      I'd totally agree with you had Graeber not been an influential anthropologist (wherein one academically studies human activity, culture, trade, economics, social structures, institutions etc. from a rigorous historical lens)
      - unmole 4y ago
        Your demand would have made sense if Debt was a peer-reviewed scholarly work and not a political screed aimed at a lay readership. But then again, there is enough nonsense in there than can be picked apart without being a domain expert. For example, Graeber claims Adam Smith's famous "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest" thesis is wrong because shopkeepers of the time mostly sold goods on credit and thus the customers were in fact depending on their benevolence. This blithe conflation of credit with benevolence should evoke laughter from anyone who is even remotely familiar with how businesses are run. And dunking on Smith is how Graeber builds his grand neo-liberal economics conspiracy theory.
        jargnar 4y ago
        Simply, as a meta note / rational argument's sake -> Let's assume X (Smith) makes statement S (X -> S). A few hundreds of years later, Y (Graeber) makes statement S' that refutes S and says Y -> S' and negates ~ (X -> S). Now what I'd expect is a Z, that counter-refutes Y. For example, Z -> S''. Instead, you're going back to saying yeah, we all know X -> S, so how can Y -> S' be ever true... A starting point for ideas on rational arguments etc is https://www.lesswrong.com/library https://www.lesswrong.com/library
        4y ago
  - sien 4y ago
    Brad De Long - a left leaning professor of economics has written extensive, quality take downs of Graeber. Search for him and Graeber. Here is one. https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/11/monday-smackdown-in-the-absence-of-high-quality-delong-smackdowns-back-to-david-graeber.html https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/11/monday-smackdown-in-t... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Bradford_DeLong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Bradford_DeLong
    - specialist 4y ago
      I concede that deLong gleefully trolled Graeber. And not much more.
    - culi 4y ago
      Oof not someone else that fell for Brad de Long's bs. Here's the ceremonial link for whenever this crap is linked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164707
      - chrisbaker98 4y ago
        Wow, I didn't know Graeber posted on HN. May he rest in peace.
      - thagsimmons 4y ago
        I followed the stoush between DeLong and Graeber closely, and my strong impression is that Graeber was thin-skinned, vengeful, often inaccurate and unable to stand criticism. DeLong was a bit trolly, but nothing a competent, stable writer shouldn't have been able to handle. This impression is also borne out by my own reading of Graeber's work, and his reprehensible actions as a working academic: https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-one-prominent-journal-went-very-wrong https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-one-prominent-journal-...
        culi 4y ago
        I have the same impressions of Graeber in this back and forth but it doesn't change the fact that Graeber has a point I mean making a Twitter bot to spam someone "stay away!" every day seems a lot more thin-skinned and vengeful than Graeber's response here. And Graeber points out that most of the "factual errors" pointed out by DeLong do basically nothing to detract from the main theses Graeber makes in his book. It's clear DeLong has it out for him and the "takedown" is just a collection of "gotchas" on minor details pasted together to try to attack the overall validity of the book
- specialist 4y ago
  As suggested by its title, "Debt" is an anthropology book about the history of debt. And by extension the origins of money. Not economics. Adam Smith and his contemporaries hypothesized that barter proceeded money. Modern economics textbooks and pundits continue to repeat this misbelief. Academics even admit the tale is often repeated as form of short hand narrative. Charlemagne was quaint?
  - unmole 4y ago
    Too bad that the book about debt and how it became intertwined with our culture and morality relies on a spurious conflation of basic terms. Adam Smith wrote a whole book on The Theory of Moral Sentiments but the beliefs that Graeber choses to ascribe to him are invented whole cloth. And for a book written by an anthropologist, the picture of China we get is a culture existentialist caricature. > Charlemagne was quaint? At least as quaint as Sher Shah Suri.
    - specialist 4y ago
      Belated followup. I reread the bits which reference and quote Adam Smith. (Revised edition.) Because maybe I'm being clueless. Sorry, I'm just not seeing it. FWIW, I wouldn't expect Smith to have access to reports from the New World, or even the inclination to connect the dots (play anthropolgist). So maybe you think Graeber is too harsh there. But I certainly expect Adam's academic successors to adjust as necessary. Also FWIW, I wouldn't care so much about barter-money genesis fables, recognizing that pop-science lags academic best avail science by decades or more, were it not for the outsized influence that economic spokesmodels have on real world policy. With that kind of assumed power, relished and hoarded, the pundits have that much more responsibility to be intellectually honest. In my future perfect world, of course. You don't have to explain more, beating a dead horse. But I am keen to know which explanations -- what is money? where did money come from? -- you favor.
- abdullahkhalids 4y ago
  The purpose of the book is to make the general-audience reader realize the problems with the conceptual-historical framework of neoliberal economics and politics. David Graeber rightfully argues that Neoliberalism sells itself to the masses by constructing this "quaint" tale of uncivilized barter-practicing foraging tribes turning into coin/money using farmers into debt based industrial-financial empires. I am sure there are many factual inaccuracies in the book (I am not an expert so I wouldn't know either way). But what he successfully manages to do is show the reader that there are many many different economic systems practiced throughout history, and many of them very highly sophisticated (and not quaint as you suggest). And once the reader realizes this, there is only a short step to the question, "is neoliberalism really the best we can do or one of the other systems better for us?"
  - unmole 4y ago
    > The purpose of the book is to make the general-audience reader realize the problems with the conceptual-historical framework of neoliberal economics and politics And misrepresenting mainstream economics is the way to do that? > (I am not an expert so I wouldn't know either way). But what he successfully This is a bizzare take. It's like claiming Graeber gets the premises wrong but somehow the conclusions he draws are correct? > that there are many many different economic systems practiced throughout history, and many of them very highly sophisticated (and not quaint as you suggest). But somehow these grand sophisticated economic systems did not find takers outside their niches. This is what makes rui stones and cloth bolts quaint curiosities compared to coinage and credit when discussing the 5000 years of debt. > And once the reader realizes this, there is only a short step to the question, "is neoliberalism really the best we can do or one of the other systems better for us?" Too bad he spins nonsensical conspiracy theories to do that. And you agree that it's a work of political rhetoric and not dispassionate scholarship.

unmole 4y ago

> Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber Graeber misinterprets the history and ideas of mainstream economics, calls the safest securities on the planet a debt that will never be paid and spins bizarre conspiracy theories about the Iraq invasion. You might learn about the quaint cultural practices of remote tribes but a lot of the ideas presented are complete nonsense. You might say it has good and original parts. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

jargnar 4y ago
> Graeber misinterprets the history and ideas of mainstream economics Can you provide a well researched body of literature that counters Graeber’s thesis as opposed to just stating an opinion?
- Wolfenstein98k 4y ago
  A non-economist makes economic claims that just so happen to reflect the political views of his political contemporaries, but it is the job of anyone who disagrees to cite an entire body of literature, reviewed to a high but unspecified standard?
  - jargnar 4y ago
    I'd totally agree with you had Graeber not been an influential anthropologist (wherein one academically studies human activity, culture, trade, economics, social structures, institutions etc. from a rigorous historical lens)
    - unmole 4y ago
      Your demand would have made sense if Debt was a peer-reviewed scholarly work and not a political screed aimed at a lay readership. But then again, there is enough nonsense in there than can be picked apart without being a domain expert. For example, Graeber claims Adam Smith's famous "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest" thesis is wrong because shopkeepers of the time mostly sold goods on credit and thus the customers were in fact depending on their benevolence. This blithe conflation of credit with benevolence should evoke laughter from anyone who is even remotely familiar with how businesses are run. And dunking on Smith is how Graeber builds his grand neo-liberal economics conspiracy theory.
      - jargnar 4y ago
        Simply, as a meta note / rational argument's sake -> Let's assume X (Smith) makes statement S (X -> S). A few hundreds of years later, Y (Graeber) makes statement S' that refutes S and says Y -> S' and negates ~ (X -> S). Now what I'd expect is a Z, that counter-refutes Y. For example, Z -> S''. Instead, you're going back to saying yeah, we all know X -> S, so how can Y -> S' be ever true... A starting point for ideas on rational arguments etc is https://www.lesswrong.com/library https://www.lesswrong.com/library
      - 4y ago
- sien 4y ago
  Brad De Long - a left leaning professor of economics has written extensive, quality take downs of Graeber. Search for him and Graeber. Here is one. https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/11/monday-smackdown-in-the-absence-of-high-quality-delong-smackdowns-back-to-david-graeber.html https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/11/monday-smackdown-in-t... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Bradford_DeLong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Bradford_DeLong
  - specialist 4y ago
    I concede that deLong gleefully trolled Graeber. And not much more.
  - culi 4y ago
    Oof not someone else that fell for Brad de Long's bs. Here's the ceremonial link for whenever this crap is linked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164707
    - chrisbaker98 4y ago
      Wow, I didn't know Graeber posted on HN. May he rest in peace.
    - thagsimmons 4y ago
      I followed the stoush between DeLong and Graeber closely, and my strong impression is that Graeber was thin-skinned, vengeful, often inaccurate and unable to stand criticism. DeLong was a bit trolly, but nothing a competent, stable writer shouldn't have been able to handle. This impression is also borne out by my own reading of Graeber's work, and his reprehensible actions as a working academic: https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-one-prominent-journal-went-very-wrong https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-one-prominent-journal-...
      - culi 4y ago
        I have the same impressions of Graeber in this back and forth but it doesn't change the fact that Graeber has a point I mean making a Twitter bot to spam someone "stay away!" every day seems a lot more thin-skinned and vengeful than Graeber's response here. And Graeber points out that most of the "factual errors" pointed out by DeLong do basically nothing to detract from the main theses Graeber makes in his book. It's clear DeLong has it out for him and the "takedown" is just a collection of "gotchas" on minor details pasted together to try to attack the overall validity of the book
specialist 4y ago
As suggested by its title, "Debt" is an anthropology book about the history of debt. And by extension the origins of money. Not economics. Adam Smith and his contemporaries hypothesized that barter proceeded money. Modern economics textbooks and pundits continue to repeat this misbelief. Academics even admit the tale is often repeated as form of short hand narrative. Charlemagne was quaint?
- unmole 4y ago
  Too bad that the book about debt and how it became intertwined with our culture and morality relies on a spurious conflation of basic terms. Adam Smith wrote a whole book on The Theory of Moral Sentiments but the beliefs that Graeber choses to ascribe to him are invented whole cloth. And for a book written by an anthropologist, the picture of China we get is a culture existentialist caricature. > Charlemagne was quaint? At least as quaint as Sher Shah Suri.
  - specialist 4y ago
    Belated followup. I reread the bits which reference and quote Adam Smith. (Revised edition.) Because maybe I'm being clueless. Sorry, I'm just not seeing it. FWIW, I wouldn't expect Smith to have access to reports from the New World, or even the inclination to connect the dots (play anthropolgist). So maybe you think Graeber is too harsh there. But I certainly expect Adam's academic successors to adjust as necessary. Also FWIW, I wouldn't care so much about barter-money genesis fables, recognizing that pop-science lags academic best avail science by decades or more, were it not for the outsized influence that economic spokesmodels have on real world policy. With that kind of assumed power, relished and hoarded, the pundits have that much more responsibility to be intellectually honest. In my future perfect world, of course. You don't have to explain more, beating a dead horse. But I am keen to know which explanations -- what is money? where did money come from? -- you favor.
abdullahkhalids 4y ago
The purpose of the book is to make the general-audience reader realize the problems with the conceptual-historical framework of neoliberal economics and politics. David Graeber rightfully argues that Neoliberalism sells itself to the masses by constructing this "quaint" tale of uncivilized barter-practicing foraging tribes turning into coin/money using farmers into debt based industrial-financial empires. I am sure there are many factual inaccuracies in the book (I am not an expert so I wouldn't know either way). But what he successfully manages to do is show the reader that there are many many different economic systems practiced throughout history, and many of them very highly sophisticated (and not quaint as you suggest). And once the reader realizes this, there is only a short step to the question, "is neoliberalism really the best we can do or one of the other systems better for us?"
- unmole 4y ago
  > The purpose of the book is to make the general-audience reader realize the problems with the conceptual-historical framework of neoliberal economics and politics And misrepresenting mainstream economics is the way to do that? > (I am not an expert so I wouldn't know either way). But what he successfully This is a bizzare take. It's like claiming Graeber gets the premises wrong but somehow the conclusions he draws are correct? > that there are many many different economic systems practiced throughout history, and many of them very highly sophisticated (and not quaint as you suggest). But somehow these grand sophisticated economic systems did not find takers outside their niches. This is what makes rui stones and cloth bolts quaint curiosities compared to coinage and credit when discussing the 5000 years of debt. > And once the reader realizes this, there is only a short step to the question, "is neoliberalism really the best we can do or one of the other systems better for us?" Too bad he spins nonsensical conspiracy theories to do that. And you agree that it's a work of political rhetoric and not dispassionate scholarship.